The Colorado Rapids exercised contract options on eight players and declined options for 11 others on Tuesday, as the process of offseason roster reshuffling cranks up in Commerce City.
The club confirmed that Diego Calderón, Jaime Castrillón (above) and Steward Ceus will depart Colorado, while Brenton Griffiths, Kory Kindle, Germán Mera, Brian Mullan, Danny Mwanga, Martín Rivero, Jamie Smith, and Hendry Thomas remain in talks with the club regarding their status for the 2014 season.
Nine other members of the Rapids are already under contract for 2014. Two others, former Generation adidas defender Anthony Wallace and Homegrown midfielder Davy Armstrong – who will remain with Colorado under the terms of his current deal while rehabbing an ACL injury – are out of contract.
Club officials say they “remain in negotiations with many players” regarding new deals for next year.
“While we’ve had to make some difficult decisions already this offseason, we’re continuing to work hard to assemble our roster for the 2014 season,” said Rapids technical director Paul Bravo in a statement.
“We’re negotiating with many players from our 2013 roster that we’d like to have back next year, but it’s always a difficult proposition to make everyone fit under the salary cap. We are excited about the squad we already have in place and the additions we’re hoping to make in the coming weeks.”
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The Rapids picked up contract options to bring back Tony Cascio, Atiba Harris, Kamani Hill, Clint Irwin, Chris Klute, Dillon Powers, Vicente Sánchez and Gabriel Torres.
Already under contract for 2014 are Deshorn Brown, Edson Buddle, Nick LaBrocca, Drew Moor, Shane O’Neill, Matt Pickens, Dillon Serna, Nathan Sturgis and Marvell Wynne.
The Rapids are scheduled to make the 11th overall selection in January’s MLS SuperDraft. See Colorado's full roster here.
